PS3 Sixaxis with Bluetooth on Debian Sid

Continuing to tweak my Kodi setup, I thought it would be fun to attempt connecting a PS3 Sixaxis controller to it, since the HTPC I’m using has built-in bluetooth.

Contrary to what most of the internet seems to say on the subject for Debian/Ubuntu systems, which seems to involve third-party tools and sometimes compiling things, I found the process much simpler on a modern system.

Here are the basics (since this is an HTPC I’m configuring over SSH, this is all non-visual stuff):

First, if you haven’t used Bluetooth on the target system yet, make sure it’s set up and working:

execute lsusb and verify the presence of a Bluetooth device, and that it’s firmware is loaded (if not, you’ll see (No firmware) next to it’s name)

after making sure the device is available, install the bluetooth package via apt-get or aptitude

make sure the Bluetooth service is running with systemctl status bluetooth.service

as a quick test to make sure BT is working, turn on a bluetooth device and run hcitool scan to see if the PC finds it

If you have working Bluetooth, the first step is to plug the Sixaxis controller into the PC using a USB cable and turn it on (hit the PS button). This will register/pair the controller.

to verify, you should be able to run systemctl status bluetooth.service again, and see notifications about the controller’s connection.

After pairing via USB, unplug the controller, hit the PS button again to power it on, and execute bluetoothctl.

You should see an entry like [NEW] Device 00:00:00:00:00:00 PLAYSTATION(R)3 Controller (where 00:00:00:00:00:00 is the mac address of your controller).

If you’re seeing periodic entries like [CHG] Device 00:00:00:00:00:00 Connected: yes/no, execute the command trust 00:00:00:00:00:00, and it should flag the controller as a trusted device.

Once done, you should have a working Bluetooth PS3 controller which you can use to control Kodi and play games with.

My steps are a bit verbose for (hopefully) clarity, but should take no more than 5 minutes and you shouldn’t need to resort to the installation of 3rd party repositories or software, or compile anything yourself.